Hello friends! I apologize for the lengthy delay in getting this blog posted. I’ve had a very busy few weeks, and I am very excited to tell you all about what I have been up to. 🙂 I am going to try something new and do a few paragraphs per week, instead of going day by day. Feel free to let me know which format is preferred. 🙂
Week 4 (August 2 – August 8):
My third official week in Hanga marked the first week that I would start my official assignment, teaching Computer Literacy at the Hanga Vocational Training Center, which is a post-secondary educational option for students. I will be teaching 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-year students, who range from 16 years of age to 25 years of age. The computer lab that I am teaching in is shown below in Picture 1. A few hurdles that I had to address immediately were revamping my lesson plans, as I had been under the impression that it would be predominantly English-based instruction, but I quickly realized that it was much easier for them to understand what I was teaching them if it was spoken/written in Swahili. So, with this in mind, I translated my lesson plans into Swahili in an attempt to adequately get my explanations and teaching across, and my teaching and their understanding became much smoother after that. Throughout the week, I continued to hone in on my teaching ability/skills and became more comfortable with the subject which I was teaching.
Featured in Picture 2 is a little girl named Juliette, who is the daughter of the woman who runs the monastery’s guest hostel. She has taken a liking to Allan and me (enthusiastically shouting “Mzungu” when she sees us). We frequently run into Juliette on weekend afternoons when she is not in school.
Week 5 (August 9 – August 15):
My fourth official week in Hanga kicked off with a Sunday celebration of the ordination of Br. Barnabus, now Fr. Barnabus, which included a celebratory Mass featured in Video 1. The celebration also included a DJ and dancing after the Mass which was followed by a delicious dinner (Picture 3). However, before I could get to dinner, I found myself back in St. Mary’s Garden, which, if you remember from my previous blog posts, is the garden run by Br. Germanus (the one wearing my sunglasses in my previous blog post and the brother featured in Picture 4 harvesting lettuce). We were in St. Mary’s because Br. Germanus has recently decided to get two dogs for the garden, in an attempt to stave off the monkeys that were eating his crops (particularly his oranges and lemons) and frustrating him. Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of the dogs, so I will try to include a picture of them in my next blog post. Anyways, Allan and I took the dogs (now named Jack and Rose) on a walk to get them some exercise and help familiarize them with the property and terrain.
Featured in Picture 5 is a delicious Tanzanian breakfast of bread and Mandazi (an East African donut of sorts). I usually have peanut butter with my bread to add some protein, and Mandazi are great for dipping in coffee or tea, but I enjoy them dry, as pictured. Picture 6 features another brother with my sunglasses who is known as Mr. Him or Mr. Hymn; I never asked for clarification on how it is spelled. 😂 Anyways, he was visiting Hanga Abbey to celebrate Br. Barnabus’ ordination, and he has been one of the most entertaining brothers I have met in Tanzania. He has an incredibly outgoing and goofy personality, and I even witnessed him shotgun a glass bottle of soda (I have no idea how you can even do that), and then he promptly dropped the bottle, looked at me, and says, “Now let’s do a beer.” Unfortunately, we never did shotgun those beers, but perhaps if I run into him again one day, we will get around to it. 🙂
Featured in Picture 7 is one of the resident cats, napping with her 1-month-old kittens. The monastery has many cats who live there because they are very good at catching rodents and keeping them out of the monastery. Most of them are incredibly wary of humans and will bolt if you get within 15 feet of them, but the kittens and their mother are incredibly curious and don’t seem to be as wary of humans as the other cats, so I was able to get close enough to get this picture without them bolting. Most of the cats hang around the kitchen because the sisters will feed them with some of the leftover food from cooking, and because it is right next to a large open outdoor area where they can sunbathe and sleep. I was hanging around the kitchen area because I was preparing to depart for Imiliwaha, Tanzania which is located in the Njombe District of Tanzania, right next door to the Ruvuma District, which is where Hanga resides. While I was waiting to depart with some of the brothers for Imiliwaha, I grabbed a quick lunch in the monastic refectory and saw an incredible mural (Picture 8), and the artist unbeknownst to me was someone I would end up meeting upon my return from Imiliwaha.
Featured in Pictures 9, 10, 11, and 12 are the church in Imiliwaha, the garden in the convent in Imiliwaha, a delicious dinner in the guest refectory featuring chicken, noodles, and Chipsi Mayai (French Fry Omelette), and a beautiful mountainside view of Tanzania on our drive back to Hanga. The reason that we were visiting Imiliwaha was twofold: it is the sister convent of Hanga Abbey, and the sisters that are staying in Hanga currently are all from Imiliwaha; secondly, we were there to celebrate a jubilee for sisters who have been with the convent for 25 and 50 years, respectively. It was a beautiful ceremony, and it was really, really cool to witness the celebration firsthand. Video 2 and Video 3 are clips I captured of the Mass and the celebration afterwards.
Week 6 (August 16 – August 22):
My fifth official week in Hanga actually started in Imiliwaha, but we were only in Imiliwaha for a short part of the morning as we left for Hanga immediately following Sunday Mass that morning.
The rest of my week was really uneventful, as it was pretty much the same as my prior two weeks of teaching. I continued to refine how I was running things in the classroom and began to find a rhythm of teaching that I was becoming comfortable with. The tricky part about vocational schools is that even though there is a set schedule, that doesn’t always mean classes get out on time, and sometimes I have to adapt a lesson plan meant for a 1.5-hour class to a class that ends up being 15 minutes because of some unforeseen delay in the schedule, so that has been something that I have found challenging but have been getting used to. Featured in the final two pictures in the gallery below are pictures 13 and 14, which are a selfie of Juliette and me and of two of the kittens who came to say hello to me when I went to check on them.
Recap:
Overall, it has been a whirlwind few weeks, and I cannot believe that September is almost upon us, and I am beginning my sixth week in Hanga. Overall, it has been a blast so far, and I cannot wait to see what this week has in store for me. Thank you again for following me along on my journey, and I will do my absolute best to get a blog post out this coming Sunday! Have a phenomenal week, my friends, and we will chat again soon! Asante na uwe na wiki njema!
Kwa upendo na shukrani,
Cormac 🫶🏻
PHOTO GALLERY!!!
VIDEO GALLERY!!!
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